Resources: Employment Law Resources

If you want to have a non-compete agreement, you can do that with an employee . . . but not an independent contractor. Remember, you can’t control an INDEPENDENT contractor. Moreover, a truly independent contractor must have their own company doing their own work separate from your own company. If you have people working forRead More

When an employee is injured at work, competing interests make it easy for an employer to improperly handle the injury on the front end. An employer’s compliance mistakes and taking a “wait-and-see approach” to work injuries can give rise to expensive claims of workers’ compensation discrimination under the Maine Workers’ Compensation Act (the Act). DespiteRead More

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)’s general counsel ruffled a few feathers last month by finding that employees who skip work to protest could be protected from termination under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). This has the potential to be a pretty startling finding for employers with politically active employees . . . soRead More

Hiring someone to work for your company that you call an independent contractor can be risky, particularly because making a mistake can lead to so many federal and state agencies pouncing on a mistake. The bottom line – to be an independent contractor, they really need to have their own company, that they have beenRead More

Should you be paying your interns? The federal Department of Labor (“DOL”) isn’t forgetting about this issue, and you shouldn’t either. Last year, we published an article on the factors the DOL was using to determine whether interns should be paid or whether a company could legally not pay their intern hire. Last month, theRead More

Thinking about doing drug testing or expanding existing testing? Maine law contains strict rules about testing – in fact, you can’t do drug testing in Maine without state approval. The Central Maine Human Resources Association will be addressing the issue of drug impairment in the workplace on February 20 (go to www.cmhra.org), a helpful first step if consideringRead More

In Maine, there are particular issues that must be addressed in a sexual harassment policy. The requirements are spelled out in the law (26 MRS § 807): the illegality of sexual harassment; the definition of sexual harassment under state law; a description of sexual harassment, utilizing examples; the internal complaint process available to the employee;Read More

In 2017, the Maine Legislature amended the law requiring harassment training, adding in record-keeping requirements and penalties, updating the poster needed, and tying a compliance checklist to the program that employers must develop. There are now penalties for failure to put up the poster as well as a failure to provide the required training. Fortunately,Read More

Maine Public Radio Maine Calling SEXUAL HARASSMENT December 6, 2017 – 1:00 – 2:00 P.M. Rebecca Webber was part of the panel that addressed sexual harassment issues on Maine Public Radio. Click the link to listen: http://mainepublic.org/post/sexual-harassment#stream/0

As of September 18, 2017, employers needed to start using the latest version of the Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification. Employers can visit https://www.uscis.gov/i-9 to get the most updated information on the new I-9. One reason the forms change and get new dates is so that Immigration Services can check dates the forms are filled out against the datesRead More